Review by Irina Dunn

STC Artistic Director Andrew Upton’s decision to shift the
period of Chekhov’s play from Tsarist to post-Soviet times in the mid 1990s was
a good call: he understood that the ennui and sense of futility Chekhov
identified in the characters under his dramatic microscope also pervaded the
same social class living under the crushing and confusing weight of a society
undergoing similarly monumental changes.

Presiding over a cast of 13 related friends and relatives
are Cate Blanchett, as the merry widow Anna Petrovna on the eve of her 40th
birthday, and Richard Roxburgh as Mikhail Platonov, the
disillusioned schoolteacher and frustrated rake.

Irish director John Crowley has assembled a talented cast
who gather to celebrate Anna’s birthday. They include: Jacqueline McKenzie, playing
the doctor Sophia who fled Communist Russia to go to Africa, returning to a
capitalist country and a reawakened passion for her former lover Platonov; Susan
Prior as Sasha, Platonov’s complacent wife who, surprisingly, deserts him by
the end of the play; Toby Schmitz as Nikolai, Sasha’s sarcastic brother who,
like his brother-in-law, has a great fondness for vodka; Chris Ryan as Sergei,
Anna’s stepson, whose wife deserts him for Platonov.

Also present are the representatives of an earlier
generation, David Downer (Yegor), Martin
Jacobs (Alexei) andMarshall
Napier (Ivan), who must take their share of responsibility for the state of
their society. They are joined by Eamon Farren as Alexei’s son
Kirill, Brandon
McClellandas
Yegor’s son Dimitri
and Andrew
Buchananas Yegor’s bodyguard
Osip,
who “elopes” with Sasha and her child by Platonov.

With such a large cast, it takes the first act to get all
the characters and their relationships sorted out, but once that is done, the
action becomes explosive when the charismatic Anna blows up the summer house
where she and her guests have just shared her birthday meal.

Chekhov said, “One must not put a loaded rifle on the
stage if no one is thinking of firing it”. Not content with one firearm,
Chekhov gets Anna to produce her late husband’s handgun early in the opening
scene, and shortly after, newly graduated medico Nikolai comes to the party
with a shotgun in hand. We the audience just know that something awful is going
to happen.

In the second act, Platonov sits in the smoking ruins and
wallows in alcoholic self-pity as his lovers parade before him. He promises to
visit the Nikolai’s girlfriend Maria (Anna Bamford) in half an hour but his
intention is interrupted when Sophia turns up professing her undying love for
him and leaves. A teary Sergei appears and accuses him of wrecking his life by
seducing his wife Sophia.

Finally, Anna appears and it is clear that the old flame
between them has never been extinguished.

Anna is facing the unpalatable choice of marrying for money
in order to save her estate, having lost a much older husband whom she loved,
and never consummating, nor likely to consummate, her youthful love for
Platonov.

The last act plays out the tragi-comedy to its inevitable
conclusion, with Nikolai and Sergei providing the farcical resentment of
cuckolds, and Sophia and Maria bitterly accepting that Platonov is not
interested in them.

Anna calls for calm amid the flying cross-currents of
antipathy and acrimony and says to her guests “Don't be mean”, but it is too
late. The die is cast, and Chekhov’s gun must go off before the curtain comes
down.

By the end of Upton’s adaptation, we are totally engrossed
in this company of poor erring and pitiful human beings – a testament to
Chekhov’s great understanding of character and to the extraordinary
performances elicited by Andrew Upton’s text and director Crowley’s feel for
its nuances.

Designer Alice Babidge, lighting designer Nick Schlieper and
composer and sound designer Stefan Gregory contribute greatly to making this a
memorable and must see production.

This is likely to be Cate Blanchett’s last appearance on an
Australian stage for quite a while, so I urge you to see what this fine actor
can do in an ensemble without surrendering any of her extraordinary theatrical
presence.

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About Me

Irina Dunn is a
well-known manuscript assessor, editor and literary agent. She is the Director of the Australian
Writers' Network, which has about 10,500 subscribers throughout Australia and abroad.

In
July 2015, she was appointed Program Director of the 2016 Bellingen Readers &
Writers Festival.

In
consultation with the volunteer committee, Irina has decided on the theme of “Page, Stage and Screen” for next year’s festival, and plans to invite
well-known and emerging names in these fields to discuss their art and craft in
front of large and appreciative audiences.

Previously Irina was Director
of the NSW Writers' Centre for 15 years, as well as Manager of the Australian
Writers’ Guild Authorship Collecting Society and Managing Editor at Booktopia.

She wrote The Writer’s Guide: a companion to writing for
pleasure or publication, (Allen & Unwin), which was
shortlisted for the Australian Publishers’ Association National Education
Awards.

The
Writer’s Guide was described by the Australian Book Review
as ‘a godsend for writers’ and as ‘one of the
clearest and most commonsensical compendiums around’ (Christopher Cyrill,
author).

She has an Honours Degree in
English Literature and Language from the University of Sydney, and a Graduate
Diploma in Russian from Macquarie University.

She has worked variously as a
tutor in the English Department at Sydney University, as a journalist, book
editor, film-maker, school and TAFE teacher and university lecturer at the
University of New England.

The book she co-authored and
co-edited with two scientists, A Natural
Legacy: Ecology in Australia, won the Royal Australian Zoological Society
Prize in 1979 for best text on the subject.

Irina received an
international prize for her documentary about the Australian women's peace
movement, "Fighting for Peace".

She represented NSW as an
Independent Senator from 1988 to 1990.

Irina was born in Shanghai,
China, and is of Russian, Irish, Portuguese and Chinese descent.

Irina has a wealth of experience in the field of publishing and editing. See Testimonials.